MUSIC SCENE.

It's Dizzee Rascal's grimy, Anglophile breed of hip-hop

April 29, 2005|By Scott Plagenhoef, Special to the Tribune.

For a global phenomenon, U.S. hip-hop is still largely driven by regional differences in sound, cadence, and personality. Increasingly, the genre is not only being exported overseas but also blended with local music to create unique and sometimes thrilling offshoots--none more so than grime, a fast-paced mix of drum and bass energy, Jamaican patois and lurching, aggressive beats and synths that developed in London's version of public housing projects and on its pirate radio stations.

To many listeners, grime is indistinguishable from hip-hop, save the heavy accents. But although both are born from social struggle and greatly Jamaican-influenced, grime developed from a uniquely London-rooted culture. "It's all the pirates," claims Dizzee Rascal, the unofficial face of grime, who will perform at the Double Door tomorrow night. "Pirate radio is where we all came up, and that's where the sound comes from."

It's underground stations such as London's Rinse FM that broadcast weekend parties and shows and allow the scene to remain local, even as its sounds are shared and feted globally via the Internet and restricted from airplay on state-owned radio and in many London clubs.

"[Just as] hip-hop was built by New Yorkers too poor to get into late-1970s disco clubs, grime evolved out of the collapsing UK garage scene of 2001," says Martin Clark, who served as co-curator of "Run the Road" (Vice Records), the first widely distributed grime compilation. "Grime was and still is effectively banned from clubs in London's affluent West End. This forced the scene to exist on illegal pirate radio."

The English capital serves as a meeting point for the world's rhythm diaspora, blending dance music--especially former pirate radio favorite, drum and bass--with Indian sounds, German techno, American hip-hop, atonal orientalism, and Jamaican dance hall, all of which can be heard in the sparse yet aggressive sound of grime.

Rascal cites this melting pot, the ability to borrow from multiple sources and yet create something singular, as one of one the creative drives behind grime. But he also insists that although he respects his roots and he's enjoying serving as grime's chief ambassador, he's willing to do anything.

"I've listened to everything, grunge--I love the attitude and energy--dance hall, hip-hop, drum and bass, so I want to do it all," says Rascal, who recently collaborated with Houston rapper Bun B and remixed a track from the new Beck album. "That's what it means to be an artist."

In the UK, Rascal's efforts have been rewarded with a Mercury Music Prize and six top-40 singles, and his fame has helped shine a light on members of his former crew, Roll Deep, as well as other London groups. Wiley, the leader of the Roll Deep Crew, is the central figure in London grime. Clark calls him the "grime lightning conductor, constantly sucking in new talent."

The rate at which new grime talent has been unearthed is staggering, if not altogether surprising. Even more than hip-hop, grime is a communal affair, built around the Jamaican tradition of producers creating riddims and allowing multiple MCs to furnish rhymes without having exclusive ownership of the music--as well as the UK traditions of raves and pirate radio, both collectivist activities fueled by immediate audience response.

Grime's dance-rooted history has meant that its beats per minute are much higher than American hip-hop, and its source material is usually different than that of its American cousin.

"Hip-hop is centered around 90-100 bpm [beats per minute], whereas grime is often as fast as 140 bpm," says Clark, whose Black Down Soundboy (www.blackdownsoundboy.blogspot.com) is one of grime's few established blogs. "Traditionally, hip-hop has been based around sampled pieces of other, older records, especially jazz, funk and disco; grime is more often original musical structures played on synthesizers."

The music bed may be the fundamental sonic difference between grime and hip-hop, but in recent years, UK MCs have taken the spotlight from producers, shifting from merely hyping the crowd or the DJ to freestyling, storytelling and developing their own personalities.

Rascal does a bit of all three and is a master of each, a lyrical MC who can narrate the tales from his neighborhood as deftly as he can crack a joke or turn a phrase.

Producer DJ Wonder will open Saturday's Double Door show by presenting what is being billed as a "history of grime," which will see him not only spin records but reportedly give some between-track context, like a college professor delivering a lecture.

For a sound that, at its heart, spits rhymes over syncopated beats, it's unusual that any explanation would be necessary. With luck and another few Dizzee Rascals and "Run the Roads," it soon won't be.